How to create a DBF file from scratch in C#?

Question

I am trying to write a DBF file from scratch in my program. I want to create it, add some columns, and then add data to the columns X amount of times. My program will not need to read it in again, but other programs will.

I've looked around for a solution to this, but all seem to assume an existing DBF file, whereas I want to make a new one.

The purpose of this is to make the DBF part of an ESRI ShapeFile.

Does anyone know how to do this?

Answer 1

Download Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Visual FoxPro 9.0 and use:

string connectionString = @"Provider=VFPOLEDB.1;Data Source=D:\temp";
using (OleDbConnection connection = new OleDbConnection(connectionString))
using (OleDbCommand command = connection.CreateCommand())
{
    connection.Open();

    OleDbParameter script = new OleDbParameter("script", @"CREATE TABLE Test (Id I, Changed D, Name C(100))");

    command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
    command.CommandText = "ExecScript";
    command.Parameters.Add(script);
    command.ExecuteNonQuery();
}

Edit: The OP does not want a FoxPro DBF format but dBase IV format:

string connectionString = @"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=D:\temp;Extended Properties=dBase IV";

using (OleDbConnection connection = new OleDbConnection(connectionString))
using (OleDbCommand command = connection.CreateCommand())
{
    connection.Open();

    command.CommandText = "CREATE TABLE Test (Id Integer, Changed Double, Name Text)";
    command.ExecuteNonQuery();
}

Answer 2

I don't know anything about ESRI ShapeFile... but you can create a dbf using OleDb.

Here is an example using the VFP OleDb provider:

    string dbfDirectory = @"c:\";
    string connectionString = "Provider=VFPOLEDB;Data Source=" + dbfDirectory;
    using (OleDbConnection connection = new OleDbConnection(connectionString)) {
        connection.Open();
        OleDbCommand command = connection.CreateCommand();

        command.CommandText = "create table Customer(CustId int, CustName v(250))";
        command.ExecuteNonQuery();
        connection.Close();
    }